
Women in America, historically, have had a stigma surrounding them that they belong at home doing chores.  Women were to be washing clothes, folding laundry, ironing, cooking meals, and cleaning the house.  Men were to be going to work, mowing the lawn, taking out the trash, and watching sports on the couch.  Women nowadays are gaining ground but are still expected to take care of the household business every day.  Women are supposed to be the nurturing ones to the children and making sure they are surviving as well.  This trend is not just happening in present times; it is frequent and continuous throughout cultures in history.  The American culture has brought upon itself a practice of separate spheres where men are in the public sphere and women are in the private sphere.  Elements in “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman help readers to understand the cultural and historical practice of the nineteenth century that dictated that women belong in the private sphere of society.

In her text, Gilman shows a young woman stuck in the yellow wallpaper which is a direct reflection of the main character.  The woman is trapped in the wallpaper as the main character is trapped in the domestic sphere because of her husband.  In the text, Gilman writes, “The faint figure behind seemed to shake the pattern, just as if she wanted to get out,” (Gilman 306).  In this, the main character is pointing out that she is the one trapped at home because of her husband.  This is said to show the treatment that the character’s husband gave her.  In America during the nineteenth century when “The Yellow Wallpaper” was written, this is the way that women were treated.  Women were treated this way because, “As productive labor shifted from the home to the factory, men, acting on premodern conceptions of men’s and women’s responsibilities, increasingly sought outside employment,” (Morantz 492).  This quote explains that women were often deemed unfit for a man’s work in society.  Men could control the public sphere because women were in control at home and with children.  Men had to show their strength and be tough in society; therefore, women had to step away from the public sphere.

The element of the character being trapped signifies the status of women in the American culture.  It was said that in the nineteenth century, “Masculine and feminine spheres became more rigidly separated,” (Morantz 492-493).  This quote means that during the nineteenth century, women were becoming more dominant in the private sphere, while men were becoming more dominant in the public sphere.  This culture of two spheres was shown in Gilman’s text because of the significance of the practice.  The feminine sphere has women trapped in basic household activities while a man works for a pay check.  Women during the nineteenth century were classified as the only people qualified to complete household chores and were the only ones that could always nurture children.  Women were considered not qualified to be in the workforce.  Gilman shows that the woman in her text does have a job, but it seems that she is not needed much because her husband could take her away from work for an extended amount of time to trap her in a house.  

Gilman exemplifies the concept of separate spheres by having the man be the working one who can take his wife and lock her in a room.  Women in the nineteenth century were burdened with a status change.  It was brought on by the differences society thought of with the private and public sphere.  American women often worked in the eighteenth century, but this fell off as the nineteenth century occurred.  Such an American cultural practice was said as, “This decline has often been associated with the notion of ‘separate spheres,’ which extolled women’s femininity, maternal and nurturant roles, and moral superiority,” (Schultz 589).  This explains that in the time period it was right to praise women for their household duties.  Women did not want to be caught in the domestic sphere, but with societal and cultural norms they became trapped.  The woman in Gilman’s text becomes a caged woman to society because of her gender in the eighteen hundreds.  

Gilman writes on how the woman’s husband, John, can take her away from her job and trap her in a room to feel better.  This is an example of how it was part of American culture in the nineteenth century for women to submit to their husband’s every want and need.  Gilman writes that the woman says, “I don’t like our room a bit.  I wanted downstairs that opened on the piazza and had roses all over the window, and such pretty old-fashioned chintz hangings!  But John would not hear of it,” which shows how the woman had to do whatever John said (Gilman 300).  This is an element in the text that shows how women were responsible for being submissive when their husbands told them what to do.  Women must obey what their husbands say and there should be no further questions.  

Part of the culture was to have women only in the home which was shown by Gilman because the woman was taken away from her work to be trapped in a room.  Women often did not feel comfortable in a space that was told to be theirs rather than a space that they made their own.  During the nineteenth century women felt extremely shunned from society as a part of having to be so submissive to their husbands.  It was explained that, “Campbell (1892) reported that young women disliked such employment because it took away from the sense of freedom which they sought to enjoy away from their own homes,” (Schultz 595).  Many women were not a fan of the domestic work they had to do all day.  They had to stay at home because the man was the one that was supposed to work and be earning the money; whereas, the women of the nineteenth century thought they could be helpful for a different purpose.  This is why the woman in Gilman’s text is discontent with her living situation at the time.

Being trapped in a room is the way that Gilman portrayed how society enlarged the idea of a private sphere for women.  Women were owned by their husbands and submitted to all they said because according to how nineteenth century society was run, women were the only people that belonged in the private sphere.  In an article about women in the 1800’s, Morantz wrote, , “It was left to the 19th century to institutionalize the concept of ‘woman’s sphere,’” (492).  The quote displays how much the practice grew in American culture because women were strongly kept out of the public eye.  Historically, the public was the man’s place and society was pushing for women to be caught in the domestic sphere.  In private, were women not only submissive, but they had to be in public too.  Women had to make their husband’s look professional in society which meant she had to do anything to boost her husband’s status.  Gilman pulls across the concept of women submitting to their husbands through the main character holding back from how she actually felt about being trapped in order to obey her husband’s wishes.

Gilman creates a story in which the man of the house can completely control his wife’s life, which shows elements of the American culture of separate spheres.  In the nineteenth century women were kept in the private sphere away from the eye of the public.  In Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” there are elements that help readers form a vision of the practice of trapping women in the domestic sphere.  The idea of separate spheres is a huge element to the nineteenth century, and Gilman produces this image by having John trap his wife in a room where she cannot escape. Gilman uses the metaphor of the girl in the wallpaper reflecting the woman trapped in the room to show how all women were pushed into the private sphere as opposed to their husbands.  Since women in America were caged, they also ended up having to submit to their husband’s.  The submissive quality of females in the nineteenth century was brought on by how males forced actions onto women.  Women were constantly told what to do, so they were submissive to keep the man happy.  Women wanted freedom from the domestic sphere, but to have any public power meant the man would have to step down, and that was unacceptable during the nineteenth century.
